I've been in interviewing loops lately, and something struck me about gender and interview questions that I'd never thought about before. It has to do with the common question, "tell me about a time when you've encountered conflict, and how that got resolved." (1+)
I realized today how loaded that question is whenever I'd had to consider how I should answer. Most women in tech encounter gender-based conflict, so when we think of conflicts we've had to resolve, they're heavily steeped in extra stuff that has nothing to do with our work.
In fact, the first three conflicts for me that are top of mind ALL were heavily gender-based. Conflict A was my lead reacting to my neutral input in a hostile way when a male peer gave him directly negative input and he reacted positively...
Conflict B was a male lead telling me my work was great, then having a male colleague changing it without telling me, and then talking about how women tended to cry if he was negative with them...
Conflict C was me asking for resolution of big decisions in UI only to be told that the man in charge had a problem dealing with women, so I was kept out of the meetings.
How are women supposed to answer the question of resolving conflicts when so many our of workplace conflicts in tech are inseparable from gender bias? I'm thinking we need a better way to get at the question of collaboration and conflict without that gender bias issue.
